“If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.” (1st Cor. 15:32)
You have to carry your cross, you have to bear the burdens, your faith must remain firm on the Rock of our salvation, you must not grow weary, you must persevere. If you do not, you might as well just eat and drink and be merry.
You do know the wicked are insane, do you not? Not the lost that we are searching for that are amongst them, but those who will die in their sins. They live in and for the world, for themselves, the purpose of their lives is to enjoy life as much as possible.
“But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;” (2nd Peter 2:12)
Selfish, full of vainglory, full of the fear of their own demise, and so they do all they can to be merry, to maintain some semblance of what they consider contentment, of happiness, avoiding every possible detrimental situation and negative emotional experience.
I believe that only those who have truly been born-again understand grief and sorrow, for though we grieve with those who are grieving, that sorrow is only temporary, we know that. The sorrow we know is the eternal sorrow they will experience if they do not repent.
Incomprehensible to those still in the world.
They live with memories of their past that assail them at every turn, while our conscience is clear because we have been forgiven. We do not forget our past evil deeds and lifestyle, but they are not a burden, for Christ bore them on the cross for us, and they are now as far from us as the east is from the west.
They live in the desires of the flesh “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6) For immediate gratification, of the endless pursuit of happiness which is always fleeting, we know a joy they cannot experience, a peace that passes all understanding, even when the heaviest burden is laid upon us.
The wicked search constantly for a future they can never attain, for anything that will give them hope, while the constant knowledge gnaws at the back of their mind that life will end, that all they have attained will belong to another, with the hope that they have been good enough.
“My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” (John 10:29)
We try to explain to them that every sin against the Most High will be forgiven, that their conscience can be clear, if they will only come to the Lord for forgiveness. We try to tell them that today is the day of salvation, that He is waiting for them with open arms if they will simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We do all we can by the power of the Holy Spirit to let them know that future goes far beyond this life, that there is an eternity of pleasure awaiting them if they will only repent and call on His name for the salvation of their soul.
And we warn them of eternal suffering if they will not.
“Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16)
Honestly my friends, somedays in my mind I just say forget them, let them die in their sins, let the brute beasts be destroyed. And then the words of the Lord through Jeremiah comes back into my heart. “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” (Jer. 20:9)
There is your burden, there is your cross, you are to hate those who hate His name while loving them enough to speak truth to them.
There is no being merry without Christ, eternal consequences are made in this short life by each of us.
